TenderNed’s DevOps shift with Sogeti

Transparency in public procurement

Widespread construction fraud during the 2008-09 financial crisis necessitated transparent and centralized public procurement processes in the EU. TenderNed was established as a solution by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy in the Netherlands – a nationwide online marketplace to handle public procurement processes amounting to €86 billion annually, a third of the country’s tax funds. Approximately €34 billion is above the European thresholds defined in the Dutch Public Procurement Act 2012.

Implemented through a collaboration between the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (the Ministry’s functional arm, known as RVO) and Dienst ICT Uitvoering (the ICT service provider, known as DICTU), TenderNed is used by the Dutch government to announce tenders and manage submissions.

More tenders, more problems

The early TenderNed years saw numerous challenges from the increasing volume of projects. Legislation and user demands evolved faster than the application. A TenderNed development team that was handling 10 change requests a year were hit with 1500.

To mitigate these challenges, TenderNed adopted an Agile approach to transition from a ‘result obligation’ to an ‘effort obligation’ strategy in 2014. They were one of the first entities within the Central Government to modernize with Agile and DevOps methods – the software development process was quickly overhauled to integrate management, continuous development, and testing using DevOps principles.

DevOps for the win

Adapting to changing laws and user requirements was slow, so DICTU engaged Sogeti in a collaboration with tech partner Quintor to assemble a skilled DevOps team at TenderNed’s Assen office.

Over a period of five years, the team was able to reduce the software code size by 30%, which brought up their TÜViT rating, an independent accredited evaluation for IT security, from two to four stars.

This also earned TenderNed the title of Master of Software Health 2023 from software analysis laboratory Software Improvement Group (SIG).

The dramatic DevOps effect

The DevOps team achieved outstanding results, which included a dramatic increase in resolution of change requests from 10 to 110, a 93% reduction in weekly incidents, accelerated development of new features, and increased frequency of releases from quarterly to fortnightly.

This had a decidedly positive knock-on effect felt throughout the organization. Improved software quality led to fewer disruptions, incidents, and ad-hoc tasks, which enabled the developers to focus on creative problem-solving. The teams now proactively check log files for errors and prevent bugs in the early stages of development.

All in all, the Agile and DevOps approach drastically reduced overhead by over 80%.

Collaboration drives transparency

The teamwork behind the TenderNed and Sogeti collaboration brought about a complete tech makeover. The results are clear—using DevOps has made everything work better, improve software quality, and increase responsiveness.

TenderNed continues to emphasize transparency in their public service delivery, and this is evident in their approach to collaboration with tech partners. Their work with Sogeti was a seamless blend of technical expertise and strategic thinking, which has resulted in a solid technology foundation for the future, with transparency at its core.